Wed, 22 Aug 2007
Visual Distillations
I have been pondering a little on the tags abstract artist and abstract art. I dislike the terms because people have so many preconceptions - such as it's easy art! I want to stress that my work is not formal abstraction - methodical, automatic or subconscious - but merely visual distillations of real experiences. My work has evolved in this way due in part to a physical isolation, alone with my thoughts and memories. I recently went to a retrospective exhibition of the work of Howard Hodgkin at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and his work epitomises just such abstracted experiences - their source may be an Indian sunset, an overheard conversation, afternoon tea, or a picture at an exhibition. Hodgkin refers to them as representational pictures of emotional situations. There were a few very large paintings and many very small ones which were hung on walls papered in gold. These small paintings were jewel-like in contrast to the background, incredibly vibrant and precious, quite exquisite. I really felt the playful flourish of his brushstrokes and I imagined the order of the colours applied, which brush might have been used, the angle of the stroke, the pressure applied. Many of his paintings had start and end dates, so the relationship between painter and painting seems intimate, perhaps difficult at times, but hopefully resolved to Howard's satisfaction. I do relate to that difficulty with making work, falling in and out of love with it, and then finally back in love again, trying to resolve the idea or emotion that began the relationship. No wonder Hodgkin can only bear to work on (and look at) one painting at time in his studio - you can truly only have one lover, madly and deeply...

Howard Hodgkin Venice Grey Water 1988-89

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